NASA ANNOUNCES NEXT STEPS IN EFFORT TO LAUNCH AMERICANS FROM U.S. SOIL

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA Friday announced new agreements with
three American commercial companies to design and develop the next
generation of U.S. human spaceflight capabilities, enabling a launch
of astronauts from U.S. soil in the next five years. Advances made by
these companies under newly signed Space Act Agreements through the
agency's Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative
are intended to ultimately lead to the availability of commercial
human spaceflight services for government and commercial customers.â?¬

"Today, we are announcing another critical step toward launching our
astronauts from U.S. soil on space systems built by American
companies," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said at the agency's
Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "We have selected three companies
that will help keep us on track to end the outsourcing of human
spaceflight and create high-paying jobs in Florida and elsewhere
across the country."

CCiCap is an initiative of NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP) and an
administration priority. The objective of the CCP is to facilitate
the development of a U.S. commercial crew space transportation
capability with the goal of achieving safe, reliable and
cost-effective access to and from the International Space Station and
low Earth orbit. After the capability is matured and expected to be
available to the government and other customers, NASA could contract
to purchase commercial services to meet its station crew
transportation needs.

The new CCiCAP agreements follow two previous initiatives by NASA to
spur the development of transportation subsystems, and represent the
next phase of U.S. commercial human space transportation, in which
industry partners develop crew transportation capabilities as fully
integrated systems. Between now and May 31, 2014, NASA's partners
will perform tests and mature integrated designs. This would then set
the stage for a future activity that will launch crewed orbital
demonstration missions to low Earth orbit by the middle of the
decade.

"For 50 years American industry has helped NASA push boundaries,
enabling us to live, work and learn in the unique environment of
microgravity and low Earth orbit," said William Gerstenmaier,
associate administrator for the Human Exploration and Operations
Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The benefits
to humanity from these endeavors are incalculable. We're counting on
the creativity of industry to provide the next generation of
transportation to low Earth orbit and expand human presence, making
space accessible and open for business."

While NASA works with U.S. industry partners to develop commercial
spaceflight capabilities to low Earth orbit, the agency also is
developing the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) and the Space
Launch System (SLS), a crew capsule and heavy-lift rocket to provide
an entirely new capability for human exploration. Designed to be
flexible for launching spacecraft for crew and cargo missions, SLS
and Orion MPCV will expand human presence beyond low Earth orbit and
enable new missions of exploration across the solar system.

The administration asked for $800 million for commercial manned spaceflight in its fiscal 2012 budget request, but Congress approved just $400 million, a cut that pushed the first NASA flight to the station back one year to 2017.

This year, the administration requested $830 million in its fiscal 2013 budget. Early debate in the House called for limiting the scope of the contract to a single company but a compromise eventually was reached that would provide $500 million.

But the full $900 million needed for the three CCiCap contracts is required if all three companies are to proceed with development. If a budget including full funding is not approved, or if a continuing resolution is required because of a budget impasse, one of the companies likely would fall by the wayside.

Space News reports that NASA has begun to outline the process under which the space agency will certify commercial human space vehicles:

空间新闻报道NASA已经开始勾勒该太空机构的商业载人太空飞行器认证中的过程

With an eye toward buying its first astronaut taxi services by 2017, NASA on Aug. 8 unveiled details about a safety certification process that will be conducted in parallel with the industry-led development of new crewed space transportation systems.

Under more than $1 billion Space Act Agreements awarded Aug. 3, Boeing Space Exploration, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) and Sierra Nevada Space Systems are developing crew transportation systems designed to carry astronauts to the international space station. These development efforts will be almost entirely guided by industry, with input from NASA. In parallel with the design phase, however, NASA plans to conduct a government-run safety certification process under separate agreements it calls Certification Products Contracts, or CPCs….

A synopsis of the CPC solicitation is due out this month, with a formal request for proposals to follow in September, Mango said at the Aug. 8 forum at Kennedy. Five days after it releases the formal request, NASA will hold another industry day for companies interested in proposing. Awards for these contracts, which will not exceed $10 million, are expected in February, Mango said. NASA expects to make two to four awards under the first phase of CPC. The three companies that just won commercial crew Space Act Agreements do not automatically qualify for a CPC award, Mango said.

Earlier this week, NASA published a Selection Statement explaining how and why it awarded $1.1 billion in commercial crew contracts to Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corporation and SpaceX last month. The 13-page document, written by William Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations, lays out how the NASA rated the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCAP) proposals submitted by these three companies and ATK, which did not receive funding.

A summary of the document with the ratings and rationale is below.

EVALUATION METHOD

NASA evaluated proposals from ATK, Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corporation, and SpaceX. Proposals from three other companies — American Aerospace, Space Operations and Spacedesign — were not evaluated because they failed to meet basic proposal requirements.
NASA’s Participant Evaluation Panel (PEP) evaluated each of the four proposals according to the following criteria. There are Effectiveness and Confidence levels associated with each proposal’s technical approach and business information (plan).

EFFECTIVENESS

CONFIDENCE

The PEP conducted initial evaluations in which they rated each proposal. Final evaluations with due diligence were then conducted on all four proposals, resulting in higher ratings in most cases. The chart below shows the final ratings with contract award amounts.

FINAL EVALUATION AFTER DUE DILIGENCE

COMPANY

SYSTEM

TECHNICAL APPROACH

BUSINESS INFORMATION

AWARD (MILLIONS)

Effectiveness

Confidence

Effectiveness

Confidence

ATK

Liberty

White (Moderate)

Low

Green
(High)

Medium

-0-

Boeing

CST-100/
Atlas V

Blue
(Very High)

High

White (Moderate)

High

$460

Sierra Nevada Corporation

Dream Chaser/
Atlas V

Blue
(Very High)

Medium

Blue
(Very High)

Medium

$212.5

SpaceX

Dragon/
Falcon 9

Blue
(Very High)

Medium

Blue
(Very High)

High

$440

TOTAL:

$1,122.5

Below are key excerpts from the Selection Statement. The first section includes Gerstenmaier’s comments on the individual proposals. The second section examines how he decided to allocate the funding among the three companies selected. My bottom line summaries are in italics.

EVALUATION BY COMPANY

ATK — No FundingThe Bottom Line: Strong business case and financial commitment, but insufficient technical information and higher risks result in no joy in Utah.

“ATK’s proposal had a strong business case that leveraged Liberty’s characteristics and capabilities, such as the ability to support a wide variety of missions beyond crew transport, including non-NASA customers, through multiple vehicle configurations for crew and cargo, and the proposal showed a significant financial investment by the ATK team as compared to the requested NASA contribution, which gave me confidence in the company’s commitment to this activity.
“However, I had serious some significant concerns about the lack of detail in some areas of ATK’s technical approach that outweighed its strengths in the Business information section. In reviewing the PEP findings, ATK was rated the lowest of the four proposals in Level of Effectiveness for Technical Approach, with a rating of WHITE (Moderate). The PEP also identified more technical weaknesses (3) for ATK than for the other proposals. The first two of these three weaknesses would have a significant effect on the ability of ATK to meet the goals of the Announcement. The PEP also had a Technical Level of Confidence rating of LOW, which was the lowest of all proposals….
“Basically the proposal lacked enough detail to determine if a safe crew transportation system could be developed in a timely and cost effective manner out of the heritage components ATK selected for this concept.”Boeing — $460 Million

CST-100 crew transport. (Credit: Boeing)

The Bottom Line: This company knows how to build spacecraft, but its failure to put more skin in the game could cause problems down the line.
“A significant factor to me in Boeing’s proposal was the comprehensive approach Boeing has to its overall integrated vehicle development plan which includes an incremental approach to the detailed design and development effort, including subsystem-level Critical Design Reviews (CDRs) culminating in its integrated CDR. This approach did a good job of tying the milestones to completion of certification and qualification activities and will allow for greater review and understanding of technical products prior to advancing to later development milestones…
“Also, it’s proposed use of heritage systems at the subsystem levels provides confidence that design and development can be executed per the proposed schedule….
“It is important to note that Boeing’s proposal has a single weakness in the Business section after due diligence for not achieving the significant financial investment strategic goal laid out in the Announcement. While this is only one of 13 Goals, I did consider it. However, Boeing met all the other goals and had a strong technical design; therefore, I did not find the lack of significant corporate financial commitment to be a major discriminator in my assessment of the Boeing proposal….
“[The] proposed corporate investment during the CCiCAP period does not provide sufficient industry investment and there is increased risk of having insufficient funding in the base period….”

Dragon on the end of the space station’s Canadarm2. (Credit: NASA)

SpaceX — $440 Million

The Bottom Line: Best business plan of the bunch, but more information needed on how to get from cargo to crew.
“I find SpaceX’s ability to leverage its existing Dragon/Falcon cargo system with incremental targeted design upgrades reduces the overall scope of the development effort going forward. Furthermore, their ground systems and mission control capability will be demonstrated several times on cargo mission prior to making the step to crewed missions, which is an advantage….
“Leveraging the CTS off of the current cargo systems offers SpaceX a strong technical advantage. However there is a technical weakness identified by the PEP in this area. The PEP was concerned about the lack of sufficient detail provided to show how SpaceX will mature the integrated CTS from the current cargo configuration to a human configuration. I share that concern, but temper the concern with the advantages of having flown the basic cargo system. Flight experience with the cargo version will show areas of the design that need additional work….
“SpaceX’s Business Information received the highest allowable Effectiveness rating of BLUE (Very High) with the Highest allowable Confidence rating of High. SpaceX’s ability to utilize significant hardware elements of its existing cargo system, infrastructure and processes is consistent with it having the lowest overall development cost of all the proposals. The proposal sets out a credible business plan on how SpaceX will capture different markets to LEO and ISS and how it will utilize existing revenue streams associated with its current manifest to fund the CCiCAP effort.”Sierra Nevada Corporation — $212.5 MillionThe Bottom Line: A winged lifting body has unique capabilities and unique challenges; the latter make this a higher-risk (and lower-rated) proposal.

Technical approach “does not adequately address the risk associated with spacecraft Thermal Protection System (TPS damage).”
“SNC has many more technologies that need to be matured in order to reach a CDR and its winged lifting body design presents some unique challenges not found in a capsule design. This technology development and the rest of its development activities within the CCiCAP base period makes SNC’s proposal a higher risk choice.
“However, there are some distinct advantages to keeping SNC and its winged vehicle approach in the portfolio. The use of a winged lifting body offers lower entry and landing g-forces, which can be easier on humans and can enable more scientific payloads that require a smoother landing to be brought back from space, cross range capability (ability to deorbit on orbits not directly aligned with the runway), and ruway landings which enable quick crew egress. These significant technical advantages could result in a larger customer base for SNC than a capsule design and more capability for users…
“SNC had significant risks because of design complexity that could impact the business approach. This resulted in a Medium Confidence rating for SNC’s business approach.”

PORTFOLIO SELECTION

The Bottom Line:Boeing has the best technical chops, SpaceX can get to a crewed flight fastest and cheapest, and SNC still has a bit of work to do.
“In reviewing the remaining three proposals, while all three received a Very High Level of Effectiveness rating for the Technical Approach, it seemed clear to me that SpaceX and Boeing had the stronger technical proposals. This is evidenced by the Medium technical Confidence rating for SNC.
Even though SpaceX also received a Medium technical Confidence rating, I do not consider these technical Confidence ratings of Medium for SNC and SpaceX as equivalent. The SNC Confidence rating is driven by several factors; complexity of heat shield design, complexity in abort conditions, controlling weight of the design, and ability to bring green propellents on line in a cost effective and timely manner. Whereas the SpaceX design is driven predominantly by a single consideration: design changes from the current cargo vehicle to a crew vehicle and human rating. Boeing had a higher technical Confidence rating….
“This portfolio provides for a diversity of spacecraft designs (capsule and winged lifting body) as well as capturing the proposal that provides the earliest crew demonstration flight under a credible schedule at the lowest development cost (SpaceX) with the proposal that represents the highest Level of Effectiveness and Confidence ratings on the technical approach (Boeing). Carrying a third company in the portfolio also adds robustness, if one of the three were to run into significant technical or financial trouble. Carrying a third company would keep competition even if one company needed to drop out….
“SNC has the most significant amount of risk reduction and technology development work to do before reaching CDR, and I would like to see what kind of progress SNC can make on increasing the maturity of of some of its key technologies before providing them with additional funding. For this reason, I have decided that SNC will receive a significantly reduced award. In order to have sufficient funding, further reductions were also needed in Boeing’s and SpaceX’s original proposals. The reductions were moderate and determined to not adversely affect the proposals.”

NASA cited SpaceX's flight experience with the Dragon spacecraft and Boeing's methodical approach to designing a crew capsule in its decision to award the companies $900 million to develop a human-rated commercial spaceship, according to a document released last week.

图：SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft completed a cargo demonstration mission to the International Space Station in May. Credit: NASA

SpaceX的龙航天器完成货物演示任务的 ISS五月。来源： NASA

Proposals by Boeing and SpaceX were the strongest received by NASA in the commercial crew competition, which bypassed a bid submitted by rocket-builder ATK and selected Sierra Nevada Corp. for a partial award of $212 million, according to a selection statement posted on a NASA website.

The 21-month agreements with Boeing, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada were signed to fulfill NASA's Commercial Crew Integrated Capability, or CCiCap, phase of the commercial crew program, which aims to develop a privately-owned human space transportation system to deliver astronauts to the International Space Station by 2017.

"It is a capability that includes the spacecraft, the launch vehicle, the ground operations, as well as the flight operations," said Ed Mango, NASA's commercial crew program manger, during the Aug. 3 announcement of the CCiCap winners.

The selection document, which details the strengths and weaknesses considered in NASA's decision, was signed by Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for the space agency's human exploration and operations directorate.

SpaceX plans up to 25 flights of the Falcon 9 rocket before the launcher's first crewed mission. Nine unmanned Dragon cargo flights are scheduled before astronauts fly in the capsule, according to SpaceX.

According to the selection document, the flight heritage of Falcon 9 and Dragon is a "strong technical advantage" and will reveal what parts of the spacecraft and ground systems need additional work.

根据选择文件，猎鹰9号和龙的飞行遗产是一个“雄厚的技术优势” 将揭示航天器和地面系统的哪些部分需要额外的工作。

图?：A mock-up of Boeing's CST-100 capsule parachutes to a landing in the Nevada desert during a helicopter drop test in May. Credit: Boeing Co.

一个波音公司的CST-100模型太空舱降落伞的跌落试验，5月期间，直升机降落在内华达州的沙漠。波音公司：

The Boeing proposal was marked by a "comprehensive approach" for the development of the CST-100 crew capsule, including incremental design milestones leading to a critical design review - when the spacecraft's design will be frozen - in April 2014.

"This approach did a good job of tying the milestones to completion of certification and qualification activities and will allow for greater review and understanding of technical products prior to advancing to later development milestones," Gerstenmaier wrote.

“这个方法搭售的里程碑，完成认证和认证活动做了很好的工作，并允许加强审查和理解推进到后来的技术产品开发的里程碑。”葛斯坦迈亚写道。

Boeing and SpaceX received agreements worth up to $460 million and $440 million, respectively. NASA will make payments upon the completion of predetermined design and testing milestones.

波音和SpaceX收到的协议价值分别高达$ 4.6亿美元和4.40亿。 NASA将在完成预定的设计和测试里程碑后付款。

In the statement, Gerstenmaier wrote that SpaceX's proposal had the lowest overall development cost of the winning bids, and Boeing's corporate investment was less than any of the firms.

在声明中，葛斯坦迈亚写道，SpaceX的提议具有最低的总体中标开发成本，波音公司的投资是不到任何公司和。

NASA's strategy for commercial crew development focuses on cost-sharing between the government and private industry.

SpaceX will work on the Dragon capsule's side-mounted abort system, test the abort system with on-pad and in-flight demonstrations, upgrade the Falcon 9 rocket with more powerful engines, and culminate in a critical design review. The SpaceX agreement includes 14 milestones.

Sierra Nevada's agreement features nine milestones to advance the design of the company's Dream Chaser lifting body spacecraft, including risk reduction work on propulsion, attitude control, and other subsystems.

In his decision to award Sierra Nevada less than half the amount received by the other CCiCap winners, Gerstenmaier highlighted the complexity and risk of the Dream Chaser's design, which could cause delays and cost growth.

But NASA kept Sierra Nevada in the program due to the unique Dream Chaser concept. The winged lifting body would return to Earth for a runway landing, giving crews and science payloads a smoother ride than capsules.

All three systems approved for government funding would carry up to seven astronauts on each flight.

这三个政府资助的系统被批准，每次飞行可运载七名宇航员。

In addition to the Liberty proposal by ATK, NASA received bids from Spacedesign Corp., American Aerospace Inc. and Space Operations. Those three proposals were not considered because they were late or did not meet fundamental criteria set for the competition, according to the selection statement.